


One Step at a Time

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: Denmark Street musings [31]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shopping, a tiny dash of pining, cinema, moral support, pub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: “People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realise you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them and their response is ‘you’re safe with me’ - that’s intimacy.” - Taylor Jenkins Reid
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Series: Denmark Street musings [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1035698
Comments: 28
Kudos: 81





	One Step at a Time

“Right,” Ilsa cried, grinning and slamming the Honda door hard enough to make her husband wince a little. “Shops first, or coffee?”

Strike, hauling himself awkwardly out of the BMW in the next space, paused and glared at her, his arms still braced against the door and roof to keep from putting all his weight onto his prosthesis while he pulled his left leg from the car. “Who said anything about shopping? You said this was a post-cinema early dinner!”

Ilsa winked across at Robin, stood the other side of the BMW, while Nick faffed about removing his coat and stowing it in the boot of their own car. “We never said there wouldn’t be shopping,” she replied slyly. “We’ll be going right past Hobbs, it would be rude not to at least look.”

Robin grinned at her, straightening her chiffon scarf.

Nick rolled his eyes at his mate. “There’ll be a pub,” he assured him. “We can mark time before dinner while the girls shop.”

Strike grunted, locking the BMW and glancing around. They were on the second floor of a multi-storey car park, a concrete monstrosity that had somehow survived amidst the rejuvenation of the surrounding area with its modern expensive blocks of flats, trendy shops and eateries. The party of four had rejected the huge multiplex cinema in the locality in favour of a smaller independent one a few miles away, but then Robin and Ilsa had lured him and Nick along afterwards with the promise of an Italian meal and plenty of red wine. Shopping had carefully not been mentioned until they were parked, he noted.

Ilsa was already off, heading for the door to the stairs, dragging Nick with her. “Come on!” she called, laughing. “We’ll soon find a pub that will babysit the two of you for an hour or so.”

“With an outside area, I hope,” Strike replied, patting his pocket to check he hadn’t left his cigarettes in the car. It had been some hours, and lighting up with a pint would be most welcome.

Nick shouldered open the door, ancient and stiff, and stepped through to hold it. Ilsa bustled past him, heading for the stairs, and Robin stepped through too, casting him a smile of thanks.

She was totally blindsided by the panic that rocked through her in the space of a heartbeat as her senses were assailed suddenly. The concrete steps, the metal handrail with its flaking green paint and rust, but most of all the smell, that smell of stale urine that someone had attempted to cover with copious quantities of disinfectant, the scourge of ancient stairwells everywhere but one in particular that she would never, no matter how hard she tried, be able to erase from the depths of her memory. It lurked there, unseen, to occasionally surge up and bludgeon her at moments like this.

She’d stepped back before she even realised it, recoiling instinctively from the horror, the blind panic, her heart lurching so that she thought she might be sick, the stench overpowering her nostrils. A detached part of her wondered how they could not notice it, the others, how they could proceed without batting an eyelid. Ilsa was down two steps already and Robin knew there was no way, nothing on earth that would persuade her to descend into that pit, down to the bottom of the stairwell where the shadows underneath the final flight lurked.

Her step back caused her to collide heavily with Strike right behind her, reaching to take the weight of the door from Nick. She was trapped, her mind a mess of panic, unable to get away from the scene in front of her, that she was going to be propelled forward into against her will—

A large hand rested, momentarily, on her hip, anchoring her, while above her Strike’s deep, comforting voice rang out.

“Stairs? Fuck that. There must be a lift.”

Ilsa swung to face him. “It’s two flights!”

Strike laughed, stepping back, gently drawing Robin with him. “Don’t care. That’s at least twenty jolts my leg doesn’t need if I’m going to be dragged round shops. Let’s go and find a lift.” The door was already swinging closed on them as they stepped back into the safety of the car park.

“We’ll race you to the bottom!” Ilsa shouted as the door banged, and their friends were gone.

Strike stepped away from Robin and swung around. “Looks like the lift is this way,” he said, indicating with a wave of his big hand, carefully not looking at her.

Robin nodded mutely and followed him, unable to speak for the tightness of her throat, the pounding of her heart, the roaring in her ears. The stench of the stairwell lingered in her nostrils, and she wondered if she was going to be sick. She stumbled after him as he moved across towards the bank of lifts on the far wall and reached to press the button.

They stood, waiting for the lift, Robin desperately trying to control her breathing and fight off the blackness pulsing at the edges of her vision. She couldn’t sit down here, on this dirty, oil-stained concrete floor.

A large hand closed over hers, the unexpectedness of it dragging her out of herself somewhat. Again, that feeling of being anchored, of being safe.

“You okay?” Strike stared straight ahead, watching the slow scroll of numbers that indicated the lift approaching their floor.

“Yeah.” Her voice came out as a gasp, and Robin took a shuddering breath and tried again. Away from the smell, from the peeling paint she’d once focused on in a desperate attempt to flee her own body, her heart was beginning to slow. Cold sweat crept across her shoulder blades. “I just...”

She stopped. Words couldn’t contain the horror of it, but the big hand on hers squeezed gently and then fell away. “I know.”

The lift arrived, and Strike stepped in, his long arm in the black coat holding the door so it couldn’t try to close on her. Feeling a little foolish now as the panic receded and normality asserted itself, Robin followed him in. The doors closed smoothly, and silence fell. The lift began to trundle slowly downwards.

“Sorry,” Robin muttered.

For the first time, Strike turned to look at her, but there was no hint of judgment in his kindly gaze. “You don’t have to apologise.”

Robin waved a vague arm. “I’ve been doing my exercises, I promise. I haven’t done that in ages, I should have known, I always avoid stairwells—”

“Robin,” he gently interrupted her. “I know you’re taking care of yourself. I can see the difference in you. But we all have triggers, things that take us right back in a heartbeat. The trick is learning to live with them.”

She looked down at her hands, twisting them together. She could still feel the echo of the warm, comforting pressure of his fingers on hers, longed to feel it again and cursed herself for the sentiment. “I know, but it’s so ridiculous. I’m with you guys, there was no danger.”

“That’s not how the amygdala works.” His voice was warm, and suddenly Robin was smiling against her will. “You know how I am with cars. Well, actually, you don’t, because I’m mostly okay when you’re driving.”

Robin remembered him saying that before, and felt the same little swell of pride at his trust in her. She remembered how his touch, brief and comforting, had held her steady. Her parents, her brothers, Matthew... none of them had really, truly understood like Strike did.

“Matthew said I just needed to get a grip,” she heard herself saying. “And Mum said I should try not to dwell on it so much.”

“Yup, I tried both of those approaches too,” Strike said cheerfully, but Robin could hear the edge to his voice. “Don’t work, do they?”

She snorted a laugh. “No.”

The ancient lift shuddered a little as it began to slow its descent.

“You’re doing well, Robin,” Strike told her now. “The exercises are working. You’re stronger all the time.”

She raised her chin, that little swell of pride growing at his words. “I am.”

Strike nodded, firmly ignoring the twist in his heart at the brave jut of her chin, forcing his hands to stay at his sides and not reach to wrap her into the hug he longed to give her. This was her fight. He could support, but he couldn’t fight it for her. So he just nodded.

“Right,” he said firmly, as the lift doors slid open to reveal Ilsa and Nick waiting for them a few metres away. “You go and shop, and Nick and I will wait it out in the nearest pub that has real ale on draught.”

Robin laughed. “I might join you when I’ve had enough of being dragged round the shops by Ilsa.”

His smile was soft. “You’ll be very welcome.”

Ducking her face to hide a sudden, girlish urge to blush, Robin followed him across to the waiting Herberts.


End file.
